Gold Rush/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Tim sweeps a metal detector along the sands of a beach. The detector beeps rapidly. TIM: Ooh. Tim digs through a pile of sand and pokes Moby buried in it. MOBY: Beep. Moby sticks his head out from under the sand. TIM: Oh, sorry about that. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, what happened during the Gold Rush? From, Turk. Well, it all started in 1848 in Coloma, California. A U.S. map shows Coloma, California, in the northern part of the state. TIM: A man named John Sutter was building a sawmill, when his workers found two gold nuggets. Almost immediately, word spread of the discovery. An image shows a newspaper with a huge headline that reads, "Gold in California!" TIM: Americans got caught up in gold fever and started heading towards northern California by the thousands. They were called 49ers, because they left home in 1849. The trip to California was long and dangerous. That's why the majority of 49ers were young men. Most left their families behind, promising to come back rich. An animation shows a man on horseback leaving his family. TIM: Some went by horse and covered wagon over land routes, like the famous Oregon Trail. A U.S. map shows the Oregon Trail, stretching west from Missouri to Oregon and California. TIM: Many people died of thirst in these western deserts. Others went by sea. They faced months of rotten food, seasickness, disease, and just plain boredom. A map of the Americas shows the sea route, from the northeast of the United States, around South America, to California. TIM: Either way, it was a hard journey that could take up to six months. And it wasn't just Americans who were drawn to California. People from Mexico, China, and Europe made their way, too. These places of origin are shown on a world map. TIM: Those who made it often settled in mining camps with other gold prospectors. An animation shows a gold prospector sitting on a log in front of his tent at a mining camp. He warms his hands in front of a fire. MOBY: Beep. TIM: A prospector is someone who explores an area looking for minerals, in this case, gold. A lot of the California gold was located in placers. Those are deposits of minerals found in the bends of rivers. So some gold prospectors used a method called panning. That's a way of separating gold from river soil by swirling it with water in a metal pan. An animation shows a gold prospector panning for gold at a river's bend. TIM: The gold would stay in the pan because it's denser than soil. The animation shows the gold nugget in the prospector's pan separating from the soil. TIM: Others used more complicated techniques, like the long tom, and the cradle. And some just went digging up land with a pick and shovel. Split images show prospectors using a long tom and a prospector using a cradle. TIM: However you planned to strike gold, it was hard work. Those who made it out west first did find gold. But because California was still a wilderness, they had to pay incredibly high prices for basic supplies like food and clothing. An animation shows a gold nugget being used to buy a hat. TIM: Others lost their hard-earned gold through gambling. All in all, not many 49ers got rich. And the mining camps and towns they stayed in were dangerous places to live. An animation shows gunfire at a mining camp. TIM: It wasn't long before most of the easy-to-find gold was gone. An animation shows a gold prospector's pan filled with only soil and no gold. TIM: By 1853, the rush was over. But the impact of this huge movement of people continued. California was made into a state in 1850. An image shows the California State flag. TIM: That wouldn't have happened without the hundreds of thousands of people that the gold rush had attracted. You can still see towns with colorful Gold Rush names all over California. Names like Placerville, Gold Hill, Whiskey Town, and Hangtown. And the memory of California gold fueled other rushes. Over the next fifty years, there were gold and silver rushes in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Alaska. A U.S. map shows these states highlighted. At the beach, Moby takes hold of the metal detector and it beeps rapidly. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Hey, did you find something cool? Moby holds up a boom box. TIM: Uh, I think that might belong to someone. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts